7-Year-Old Saves $10K for College by Starting Recycling Business

One California kid has already made thousands by tapping into his entrepreneur spirit and combining it with his passion for the environment.

While most 7-year-olds have barely saved $10, Orange County resident Ryan Hickman has saved an astonishing $10,000 after starting his own recycling business at just 3 years old, KABC reported.

“We had gone to the center with a couple of bags, and he really loved the actual act of putting all the cans and bottles into the machine and getting the money for it, and that kind of got him hooked,” said Ryan’s father, Damion Hickman.

Ryan then enlisted the help of friends and family to start his own business, which he named Ryan’s Recyling.

The kid means business when it comes to recycling. He’s recycling about 200,000 cans of bottles in his lifetime, he estimated.

Ryan’s family helps him sort through the bags of recyclables, which speeds up the process, he said.

“If it’s me, my dad and my mom and my grandma doing it at the same time, one bag will be gone like in, let’s say, two minutes,” Ryan said.

He also sells T-shirts on his website and donates the proceeds to the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach “for the sea lions to get food and medicine,” he said.

Ryan was even featured on “The Ellen Degeneres Show” in January as part of its “Scrappy Story of the Month” segment.

Although the money he’s collected so far is allocated to future college tuition, Ryan would like to save enough money to buy a garbage truck, he said.

“If you already recycle, just keep on recycling. If you don’t recycle, start recycling,” Ryan said.